Posted
by
Cliff
on Tuesday November 07, 2006 @05:33PM
from the voter-responsibility dept.

ras_b asks: "I don't pay attention to politics at all, and so I will not be voting in today's elections. My family has been telling me that this is a mistake and I should vote anyway, partly because I have slightly conservative views which agrees with their political outlook. My reasoning is that since I am totally uninformed, I shouldn't vote. I don't want to vote Republican or Democrat, only to find out later I totally disagree with something a candidate stands for. So, here's my dilemma and my question: Is an uninformed vote better than no vote?" This issue is touched upon in a posting by Ezra Klein, of the The American Prospect, who disagrees, arguing against a similar assertion by Greg Mankiw, from a suppressed Fortune article. Greg says: "Sometimes...the most responsible thing a person can do on election day is stay at home ... If you really don't know enough to cast an intelligent vote, you should be eager to let your more informed neighbors make the decision." What do you think?

Why do you assume a uniform distribution? This could be skewed by any number of factors including the attractiveness of a party name, effective though uninformative marketing, misconceptions based on historic positions of the parties and the order of names on the ballot.

A recent study which I won't cite because it might refute my claim states that about two-thirds of statistics are completely made up. Another study would seem to correlate that fact, stating that during periods of electioneering there is a consistent onslaught of made up studies. I won't cite my sources because it's better you take my word for it. Especially on/., because nobody here cares about reading those _boring_ studies discussing sociological trends.

A recent study shows that that last bit is a joke, for those of you with no sense for sarcasm.